"I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and
have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as
possible." These were the words of Chelsea Manning,
the day after she was sentenced to 35 years for leaking classified
military documents. (Manning had been arrested, tried and sentenced in a
military court as Bradley Manning.)

The military responded to Manning's statement with its own: "The Army does not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery for gender identity disorder."

Manning likely will serve her sentence at Fort Leavenworth, the only
military prison for those sentenced to ten or more years, a military spokesperson told The Associated Press. Fort Leavenworth is a men's military prison in Kansas. As reported in Truthout,
chances seem slim that Manning will be able to begin hormone therapy
anytime soon. But what else awaits Chelsea Manning as she begins her
35-year sentence as the first openly trans woman at the US Detention
Barracks (USDB) at Fort Leavenworth?

Access to Hormones in State and Federal Prisons and the Eighth Amendment

Manning attorney David E. Coombs has publicly stated
that he hopes the military "would do the right thing" and provide
hormone therapy for Manning. "If Fort Leavenworth does not, then I'm
going to do everything in my power to make sure they are forced to do
so."

Coombs may be able to draw on legal precedents that have forced the
federal and state prison systems to change policies about hormone
treatment. After Wisconsin passed a 2005 law barring trans prisoners
from receiving hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery, advocacy
groups sued the state on behalf of trans prisoners, some of whom had
received hormones for years prior. In 2010, a federal court ruled that
denying trans prisoners to hormones and other medical treatment violated
the Eighth Amendment. The US Supreme Court affirmed that decision in 2011.

That same year, a settlement agreement forced the Federal Bureau of
Prisons, which oversees the federal prison system, to change its policy
to allow an individualized assessment, evaluation and treatment
of prisoners for "gender identity disorder." Before that, only people
who had been diagnosed with "gender identity disorder" previously and
were receiving documented hormone treatment were eligible for in-prison
hormone therapy.

The British Parliament’s rejection of an attack on Syria is a direct
contrast—and implicit challenge—to the political war system of the
United States.

“It is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views
of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I
get that, and the government will act accordingly,” Prime Minister David
Cameron said Thursday night. At least for now, Uncle Sam’s poodle is
off the leash.

Now all eyes turn to Congress, where the bar has suddenly been
raised. Can the House of Representatives measure up to the House of
Commons?

It’s a crucial question—but President Obama intends to render it moot
with unwavering contempt for the war authority of Congress. Like his
predecessors.

Even with war votes on Capitol Hill, the charade quotient has been
high. The Gulf War began in early 1991 after the Senate vote for war was
close: 52 to 47. But, as the PBS “Frontline” program reported years later, President George H.W. Bush had a plan in place: if Congress voted against going to war, he’d ignore Congress.

“The president privately, with the most inner circle, made absolutely
clear he was going to go forward with this action even if he were
impeached,” said Robert Gates, who was deputy national security advisor.
“The truth of the matter is that while public opinion and the voice of
Congress was important to Bush, I believe it had no impact on his
decision about what he would do. He was going to throw that son of a
bitch [Saddam Hussein] out of Kuwait, regardless of whether the Congress
or the public supported him.”

By the Pentagon’s estimate, the six weeks of the Gulf War took the
lives of 100,000 Iraqi people. “It’s really not a number I’m terribly
interested in,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Colin Powell, said
at the time.

Eight years later, the War Powers Act’s 60-day deadline for
congressional approval of U.S. warfare expired on May 25, 1999—but
large-scale U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia continued. Bill Clinton was
unable to get authorization from Congress but, like other wartime
presidents before and since, he ignored the law that was passed in 1973
to constrain autocratic war-making. Republican Rep. Tom Campbell said:
“The president is in violation of the law. That is clear.” Democratic
Rep. Dennis Kucinich said: “The war continues unauthorized, without the
consent of the governed.” And President Clinton said, in effect, I don’t
care.

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/30/uk-new-york-times-destroy-snowden_n_3844706.htmlReuters
Posted: 08/30/2013 By Mark HosenballWASHINGTON, Aug 30 (Reuters) -
The British government has asked the New York Times to destroy copies
of documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor
Edward Snowden related to the operations of the U.S. spy agency and its
British partner, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), people
familiar with the matter said.The British
request, made to Times executive editor Jill Abramson by a senior
official at the British Embassy in Washington D.C., was greeted by
Abramson with silence, according to the sources. British officials
indicated they intended to follow up on their request later with the
Times, but never did, one of the sources said.On
Friday, in a public statement, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the
Guardian, said his newspaper, which had faced threats of possible legal
action from British authorities, on July 20 had destroyed copies of
leaked documents which it had received from Snowden.Rusbridger
said that two days later, on July 22, the Guardian informed British
authorities that materials related to GCHQ had made their way to the
New York Times and the independent investigative journalism group
ProPublica.Rusbridger said in his statement that
it then took British authorities "more than three weeks before anyone
from the British government contacted the New York Times."We
understand the British Embassy in Washington met with the New York
Times in mid-August - over three weeks after the Guardian's material
was destroyed in London. To date, no-one has contacted ProPublica, and
there has been two weeks of further silence towards the New York Times
from the government," Rusbridger said.

Sam
Hinn is just one in a long line of preachers and pastors in need of
rehabilitation and who desired restoration after sexual and financial
shenanigans.

When it comes to being restored, re-ordained and returned to the
pulpit after confessing to a four-year extramarital affair with a member
of his congregation, Sam Hinn, the younger brother of well-known
televangelist and faith healer Benny Hinn, may have set a new speed
record for fallen evangelical leaders.

Older brother Benny is a big-time brand, squirrelling the spotlight
for a good chunk of his professional life, and his ministry reels in
extraordinary amounts of money. He's traveled the globe, bought
mansions, and has lived the good life. He's also experienced a fair
amount of controversy along the way; his prophesies have been way off
the mark, including one made in 1989 that Fidel Castro wouldn't outlast
the 1990s; he was one of a group of televangelists whose financial
shenanigans inspired an investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa);
and, two years ago, he was accused of being involved in a messy
extramarital affair with Paula White—another well-known televangelist—an
accusation that threatened his worldwide ministry. Hinn self-recovered
and is back televangelizing.

Now, younger brother Sam, who compared to Benny is a minor figure in
the world of evangelicals, is grabbing some kinky headlines of his own.

An affair made in heaven

"Chantel Wonder said [Sam] Hinn... initiated the affair with her
mother by telling her they were 'soul mates' and that God approved of
the relationship," the Orlando Sentinel reported in January. It should
be noted that one of Sam Hinn's claims to fame is that he has a personal
relationship with God, ergo Sam's assurances to her that God had
pre-approved the affair.

"He put her in a position that this is OK because it's what God
wants. He was using God to justify it." Her mother is a hairstylist who
eventually styled hair for Hinn's wife and children.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, "Wonder said her father became
aware of the affair in December 2008 after he found text and voice
messages from Hinn on his wife's phone. At the time, his wife denied the
affair. The couple, who were married June 20, 1980, divorced on Feb.
14, 2012.

"Wonder said Hinn, who is married and has four children, continued
the affair after her parents divorced. She said church officials
confronted Hinn with evidence of the affair in December 2012, but he
refused to admit he was involved with the woman.

The mental strain of living in poverty and thinking constantly about
tight finances can drop a person’s IQ by as much as 13 percent, or about the equivalent of losing a night of sleep,
according to a new study. It consumes so much mental energy that there
is often little room to think about anything else, which leaves
low-income people more susceptible to bad decisions.

One of the study’s authors, Harvard economist Sandhil Mullainathan, told the Washington Post,
“Poverty is the equivalent of pulling an all-nighter. Picture yourself
after an all-nighter. Being poor is like that every day.”

The researchers came to this conclusion after conducting two separate
experiments. The first gave low- and moderate-income shoppers at a mall
in New Jersey a number of tests that measure IQ and impulse control,
but half of the participants were first given a question about finances:
what they would do if they needed to make $1,500 worth of repairs on
their car, putting financial concerns at the forefront of their minds.
They found that it reduced cognitive performance among the poor
participants but not those who are well-off.

The second experiment looked at the cognitive functions of farmers in
India before the harvest, when they are poor, and after the harvest,
when they have much more money. The same farmer performs lower on
cognitive ability before than he does after — which researchers say
“cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition, or
work effort” nor by stress. Instead, it appears to be poverty reducing
their mental capacity.

The fast food strikes that began last November in New York City with
walkouts by 200 workers expanded and spread to other cities in the
spring and summer. On Thursday, thousands of workers in 60 cities went
on a one-day strike. The demands were the same, only amplified — higher
pay, to $15 an hour, and the right to organize without retaliation.

There are many reasons to support the strikers. There’s the still
resonant goal — expressed by those who marched on Washington 50 years
ago — of ensuring that work leads to a decent standard of living. That’s
not achievable at today’s federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or at
the typical wage for fast food workers, about $9.00 an hour. If the
minimum wage had kept pace with inflation over the past 50 years, it
would be about $10 an hour today. If it had kept pace with the growth in
average labor productivity, it would be about $17 an hour. Split the
difference and you are not far from what the strikers are calling for.

Another reason to support the strikers is economic self-interest. The
low wages of fast food workers — and of workers in retail, home care
and other low-wage industries — force many of them onto food stamps and
other public assistance to get by. Taxpayers step up with aid because
employers don’t pay enough.
There’s also the fact that fast food corporations — McDonald’s, Yum
Brands (which includes Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC), Wendy’s — can
afford to pay more. The chief executives of McDonald’s and Yum are among
the nation’s highest paid bosses. Wendy’s profits have been soaring
lately. The corporations invariably say that individual franchisees set
wages and franchisees say they can’t afford to pay more without raising
prices, which they say would drive away customers and lead to job loss.
But wages aren’t the franchisees’ only cost. They also pay rent and
royalties to their corporate bosses. How about lowering those costs to
create room for raises?

Of course such changes would lead to lower profits and that would
translate into lower executive pay and lower shareholder returns. But
we’re talking about big,profitable companies, which are big and
profitable in part because they rely on underpaid labor.

Fukushima showed us the intolerable costs of nuclear power. The citizens of Vermont show us the benefits of shutting it down

Entergy Corp, one of the largest nuclear-power producers in the US, issued a surprise press release Tuesday, saying it plans "to close and decommission its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power
Station in Vernon, Vermont. The station is expected to cease power
production after its current fuel cycle and move to safe shutdown in the
fourth quarter of 2014." Although the press release came from the
corporation, it was years of people's protests and state legislative
action that forced its closure. At the same time that activists
celebrate this key defeat of nuclear power, officials in Japan admitted that radioactive leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe are far worse than previously acknowledged. "It
took three years, but it was citizen pressure that got the state Senate
to such a position", nuclear-energy consultant Arnie Gundersen told me
of Entergy's announcement. He has coordinated projects at 70 nuclear
plants around the country and now provides independent testimony on
nuclear and radiation issues. He explained how the state of Vermont, in
the first such action in the country, had banned the plant from
operating beyond its original 40-year permit. Entergy was seeking a
20-year extension.

The
legislature, in that 26-to-4 vote, said: 'No, we're not going to allow
you to reapply. It's over. You know, a deal's a deal. We had a 40-year
deal.' Well, Entergy went to first the federal court here in Vermont and
won, and then went to an appeals court in New York City and won again
on the issue, as they framed it, that states have no authority to
regulate safety.

Despite prevailing in the courts, Entergy bowed to public pressure.

Back in 2011, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, who called Entergy "a company that we found we can't trust", said on "Democracy Now!":

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced Thursday
that when it comes to taxes, it will recognize same-sex couples'
marriages even if they live in a state that does not. The decision, which was prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling
to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, marks the latest political
progress for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Prior to this spring, the Internal Revenue Service did not recognize
same-sex married couples pursuant to section 3 of DOMA. Once DOMA was
overturned in June, the question became:
What about same-sex married couples who moved to a state that didn’t
recognize their marriage (a couple married in Massachusetts who moved to
Arkansas, for example)?

Thursday’s ruling by Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew provides a uniform
policy for the IRS; the state of celebration -- where the wedding took
place -- now trumps the state of residency when it comes to federal tax
status for same-sex married couples.

“Today’s ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax filing
guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide. It
provides access to benefits, responsibilities and protections under
federal tax law that all Americans deserve,” Lew said in a statement.
“This ruling also assures legally married same-sex couples that they can
move freely throughout the country knowing that their federal filing
status will not change.”

The new policy, which was first shared by Lew in a conference call
that included LGBT advocates, holds a bit of political significance. It
was the burden of federal tax law on same-sex couples, after all, that
prompted the legal challenge to DOMA in the first place.

The
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Thursday issued a memo
clarifying that gay spouses have equal access to skilled nursing
facilities through Medicare Advantage.

The policy change comes two
months after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA), which prohibited federal agencies from recognizing the legal
marriages of gay and lesbian couples.

“HHS is working swiftly to
implement the Supreme Court's decision and maximize federal recognition
of same-sex spouses in HHS programs,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
said in a statement. “Today's announcement is the first of many steps
that we will be taking over the coming months to clarify the effects of
the Supreme Court's decision and to ensure that gay and lesbian married
couples are treated equally under the law.”

As of Thursday,
private companies that contract with Medicare to cover services offered
in a skilled nursing facility must provide equally coverage to all
legally married couples, regardless of whether the state that they live
in allows gay couples to marry.

“Today, Medicare is ensuring that
all beneficiaries will have equal access to coverage in a nursing home
where their spouse lives, regardless of their sexual orientation,” said
Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Marilyn
Tavenner. “Prior to this, a beneficiary in a same-sex marriage enrolled
in a Medicare Advantage plan did not have equal access to such coverage
and, as a result, could have faced time away from his or her spouse or
higher costs because of the way that marriage was defined for this
purpose.”

At the Guardian,
Nafeez Ahmed, executive director of the Institute for Policy Research
& Development, has an idea about what might be driving the massive
expansion of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program that we’ve learned
so much about lately. It’s not concerns about religious fundamentalists
who hate America. Instead, he suggests, the government is worried about
environmental activism:

But why have Western security
agencies developed such an unprecedented capacity to spy on their own
domestic populations? Since the 2008 economic crash, security agencies
have increasingly spied on political activists, especially environmental
groups, on behalf of corporate interests. This activity is linked to
the last decade of US defence planning, which has been increasingly
concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home triggered by catastrophic
events linked to climate change, energy shocks or economic crisis — or
all three.

Who would have thunk? It turns out the
U.S. government is worried about climate change, after all. At least if
being worried about climate change lets them use all their cool spy
gear.

Across the government, security professionals are fretting
about natural disasters and global oil shortfalls, Ahmed explains. The
Department of Defense has written that “climate change, energy security,
and economic stability are inextricably linked.” They’re nervous about
what this means: What are people going to do when they realized they’re,
to use the technical term, totally screwed? The Army’s Strategic
Studies Institute has suggested that, in the case of a total freak-out,
it might be necessary to “use of military force against hostile groups
inside the United States.”

Who are those hostiles? Why, they might just be environmentalists.

The
government tends to see environmentalists in one of two ways. They’re
either harmless hippie treehuggers who can easily be ignored or
dangerous eco-terrorists who need to be watched. The defense and
intelligence people incline toward the latter view.

After 9/11, the NYPD built in effect its own CIA—and
its Demographics Unit delved deeper into the lives of citizens than did
the NSA.

By Matt Apuzzo & Adam Goldman
Published Aug 25, 2013On the morning of September 11, the detectives of the New York Police
Department’s Intelligence Division traveled in force toward the burning
towers of the World Trade Center, the biggest crime scene in American
history, to find absolutely nothing for themselves to do. The city had
been quickly cordoned off. Some made it as far as Chambers Street.
Others were stopped at Canal Street. “Stand by,” they were told. They
milled about for hours, waiting for orders that never came. Finally, a
contingent of officers was dispatched toward ground zero with garbage
cans to collect guns and equipment left by fallen first responders.

Later in the day, a group of them gathered at the Police
Academy, where Deputy Chief John Cutter told them to start contacting
their informants. At that moment, it may have been the only possible
command—which didn’t mean it was a useful one. Despite the name, the
Intelligence Division was mostly concentrated on gangs and drug dealers,
as well as providing a glorified chauffeur service for visiting
dignitaries. International terrorism had never been part of their
purview.

But they had to start somewhere, and the detectives did what
they were told, reaching out to their network of informants—dope dealers
and gang members—to ask what they knew about the worst terrorist attack
in U.S. history.

For the next few months, the Intel cops worked alongside the FBI out of makeshift command centers aboard the decommissioned USS Intrepid
and in an FBI parking garage, where detectives sat on the concrete
floor, responding to a flood of tips pouring in from a public consumed
with the possibility of another attack, questioning Muslims whose
neighbors suddenly deemed them suspicious.

When Ray Kelly was sworn in as
police commissioner in January 2002, one of his first goals was to
eliminate that kind of aimless fumbling. The first man to rise from
cadet to police commissioner and the first person to hold the top job
twice, Kelly was police commissioner under Mayor David Dinkins, when
terrorists detonated a truck bomb in the garage below the World Trade
Center’s North Tower in 1993.

The whispers and public statements might be coming
from the White House and Pentagon, but it seems US media outlets are the
real amplifiers of the call to bomb Syria

Jon QueallyPublished on Tuesday, August 27, 2013 by Common DreamsWhat the US media still doesn't know about the use of chemical
weapons in Syria last week has done little to keep it from accepting
statements from the US government with barely a whiff of the skepticism
one would expect after the colossal—and well-documented—media failure that preceded the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

And if there were voices cautioning against a volly of U.S./NATO airstrikes (note: there are), most media consumers scanning the front pages of top news websites wouldn't know it.

Instead what they'd see if they looked at CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the Huffington Post on Tuesday morning was not so much a US government on tapping the "drums of war" but a corporate media system banging on them.

Similarly, as FireDogLake's Kevin Gosztola cataloged,
the editorial boards from some of the largest US newspapers penned
editorials that somewhat unanimously supported direct military action by
the US. Despite the continued lack of concrete evidence about the
details of the chemical attack, Gosztola continued his critique of
mainstream outlets by noting how the troubling trend was

further proven by the round of reports in US media [Sunday], which
granted an Obama administration official anonymity to say there was
“very little doubt” that chemical weapons had been used by the Syrian
regime against civilians. Such a statement could easily help increase
public and political support for military action yet the media did not
force the person to go on the record and give his or her name if the
administration wanted such a statement to be published.

And it's not just the neo-conservatives pushing for their latest war
of choice. As Greg Mitchell, who literally wrote the book on the media
failure surrounding the Iraq War, observed in his blog at The Nation late Monday:

It's time to examine the "support our troops" rhetoric and understand it does little for those whose lives are at risk.

My
16-month-old son was having a bad day. When he doesn’t sleep in the
car, he usually points and babbles his approval of all the wonderful
things babies notice that completely escape adult attention. On this
afternoon, though, he was teething and hungry, a lethal scenario for an
energetic youngster strapped into a high-tech seating apparatus
(approved and installed, of course, by the state).

When it became
clear he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, sleep it out, my wife and I stopped at a
nondescript exit, the kind one finds every six miles in the South, with
two gas stations and three abandoned buildings (if you’re lucky, you
also get a Hampton Inn and Cracker Barrel). While she tended to the
baby, I entered a convenience store — one of those squat, glass and
plastic rectangles that looks like a Sears & Roebuck erector set —
praying it would have something other than beer, cigarettes and beef
jerky.

I settled on two Kraft mozzarella sticks, resisting the urge to purchase for myself a shiny red can of Four Loko.

“That’ll
be $1.82,” the lady at the counter cheerily informed me. After I handed
her two ones, she asked, “Would you like to donate your change to the
troops?” I noticed a jar with “support our troops” taped to it in
handwritten ink.

She
had good reason to be disappointed. The vast majority of customers, I
imagine, spare a few dimes and pennies for so important a cause. Her
response evinced more shock than anger. She wasn’t expecting a refusal
of 18 cents, even from a guy who looks very much like those responsible
for the danger to our troops.

Besides, nobody likes to have their altruism invalidated by a recalcitrant or ungrateful audience.

WASHINGTON — President Obama is prepared to move ahead with a limited
military strike on Syria, administration officials said Thursday,
despite a stinging rejection of such action by America’s stalwart ally
Britain and mounting questions from Congress.

The negative vote in Britain’s Parliament was a heavy blow to Prime
Minister David Cameron, who had pledged his support to Mr. Obama and
called on lawmakers to endorse Britain’s involvement in a brief
operation to punish the government of President Bashar al-Assad for
apparently launching a deadly chemical weapons attack last week that
killed hundreds.

The vote was also a setback for Mr. Obama, who, having given up hope of
getting United Nations Security Council authorization for the strike, is
struggling to assemble a coalition of allies against Syria.

But administration officials made clear that the eroding support would
not deter Mr. Obama in deciding to go ahead with a strike. Pentagon
officials said that the Navy had now moved a fifth destroyer into the
eastern Mediterranean Sea. Each ship carries dozens of Tomahawk cruise
missiles that would probably be the centerpiece of any attack on Syria.

Even before the parliamentary vote, White House officials said, Mr.
Obama decided there was no way he could overcome objections by Russia,
Syria’s longtime backer, to any resolution in the Security Council.

Although administration officials cautioned that Mr. Obama had not made a
final decision, all indications suggest that a strike could occur soon
after United Nations investigators charged with scrutinizing the Aug. 21
attack leave the country. They are scheduled to depart Damascus on
Saturday.

The White House presented its case for military action to Congressional
leaders on Thursday evening, trying to head off growing pressure from
Democrats and Republicans to provide more information about the
administration’s military planning and seek Congressional approval for
any action.

LONDON — British Prime Minister David Cameron lost a vote endorsing
military action against Syria by 13 votes Thursday, a stunning defeat
that will almost guarantee that Britain plays no direct role in any U.S.
attack on Bashar Assad's government.

A grim-faced Cameron conceded after the vote that "the British
Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to
see British military action."

The prime minister said that while he still believed in a
"tough response" to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad's
regime, he would respect the will of Parliament.

Responding to the vote, the White House said that a decision on a
possible military strike against Syria will be guided by America's best
interests, suggesting the U.S. may act alone if other nations won't
help.

The defeat was as dramatic as it was unexpected. At the start of the
week, Cameron had seemed poised to join Washington in possible military
action against Assad. The suspected chemical weapons attacks took place
Aug. 21 in suburbs east and west of Damascus. The humanitarian group
Doctors Without Borders has said the strikes killed 355 people.

Gruesome images of sickened men, women and children writhing on the
floor drew outrage from across the world, and Cameron recalled
Parliament from its summer break for an emergency vote, which was widely
seen as a prelude to international action.

"The video footage illustrates some of the most sickening human
suffering imaginable," Cameron told lawmakers before the vote, arguing
that the most dangerous thing to do was to "stand back and do nothing."

WASHINGTON -- Citing his responsibility to represent the views of his
constituents, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said Thursday that he can't
support an attack on Syria that his voters strongly oppose.

"One thing that is perfectly clear to me in my district, and I think
is true in many other districts from speaking to other members, is that
there is no desire, no desire on the part of people to be the world's policeman," Grayson said on SiriusXM's "The Agenda with Ari Rabin-Havt,"
which aired Thursday morning. "For us to pick up this gauntlet even on
the basis of unequivocal evidence of chemical warfare by the Syrian
army, deliberately against its own people -- even if there were
unequivocal evidence of that -- that's just not what people in my
district want."

That doesn't mean that opposition is universal, Grayson allowed. "I
did notice, for what it's worth, that the manufacturer of the missiles
that would be used has had an incredible run in their stock value in the
last 60 days. Raytheon stock is up 20 percent in the past 60 days as
the likelihood of the use of their missiles against Syria becomes more
likely. So I understand that there is a certain element of our society
that does benefit from this, but they're not the people who vote for me,
or by the way the people who contribute to my campaign," he said.
"Nobody wants this except the military-industrial complex."

The US has been providing Egypt with nearly $2 billion a year in "aid"
since 1979. Most of this is military aid. That "aid" is then used to
buy weapons from American corporations. So in reality most of US
foreign aid becomes more welfare programs for the military industrial
complex.

Because of current civil war conditions in Egypt the Obama team is
having to hold off on providing more aid to that embattled nation. A
recent Pew Research Center poll found that 51% of respondents said it's
better to cut off military assistance to Egypt, while 26% backed
continued aid.

The "aid" now on temporary hold would include: F-16 fighter jets from
Lockheed Martin; M1A1 tanks from General Dynamics; and Apache attack
helicopters made by Boeing Co.

CBS News reported on August 20: "The billion dollars in aid
Congress approved for Egypt does not go directly to Cairo, it goes to
places such as Archbald, Pennsylvania. The General Dynamics factory
there makes parts for the M1A1 tank. General Dynamics is filling an
order for 125 tank kits for the Egyptian Army. One-hundred-thirty
people work at the Archbald facility."

You can imagine the workers at the Archbald facility want this "aid"
to continue. Archbald Mayor Ed Fairbrother says the jobs are "extremely
important" to the community. "They are some of the best jobs we have in
the community," he says. "Those are the kinds of jobs that sustain
communities and families."

There are 44 companies in Pennsylvania involved in production of the
M1A1. The interesting thing is that Egypt does not need the tanks and
many of the "kits" are still in crates after being delivered to their
military.

American communities have become addicted to war spending and
military production. As most traditional manufacturing industry has
moved overseas seeking cheaper labor the best jobs in most parts of the
nation are building weapons. It's thus no coincidence that the #1
industrial export product of our nation is weapons. And what is our
global marketing strategy for that product line? Hello Syria!

This unprecedented decision steers federal priority away from the longstanding, reactionary U.S. war on drugs.

U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder made a historic move today when he
informed the governors of Colorado and Washington that the federal
government would not interfere with their states' laws allowing for the
legal use of marijuana.

For years federal agents have stormed and
raided marijuana dispensaries in states like California where medical
use has been legal for decades, but this unprecedented decision steers
federal priority away from the longstanding, reactionary U.S. war on
drugs.

In last November's election Colorado and Washington voters
chose to legalize marijuana use for adults in their states. The
legalization of pot blatantly contradicts the federal government’s
classification of marijuana as an illegal Schedule I substance
“considered the most dangerous class of drugs with a high potential for
abuse and potentially severe psychological and/or physical dependence.”

In response to the states' ballot results, President Obama told ABC News’s Barbara Walters in
December that his administration had "bigger fish to fry" and would not
prioritize recreational pot smokers in states where it is legal. The Washington Postreported that the Justice Department and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy " had remained silent" about
the Colorado and Washington marijuana initiatives until today "despite
repeated requests for guidance from state officials."

Holder's
announcement means the Department of Justice will not sue the states
over their regulation and implementation of their marijuana ballot
initiatives. In addition to Holder's news, Deputy Attorney General James
C ole released a memo addressed to U.S. attorneys in all 50 states. The memo reads:

"The
Department's guidance in this memorandum rests on its expectation that
states and local governments that have enacted laws authorizing
marijuana-related conduct will implement strong and effective regulatory
and enforcement systems that will address the threat those state laws
could pose to public safety, public health and other law enforcement
interests. A system adequate to that task must not only contain robust
controls and procedures on paper; it must also be effective in
practice."

As the Huffington Post reported,
Cole’s memo also outlines “eight priorities for federal prosecutors
enforcing marijuana laws. According to the guidance, DOJ will still
prosecute individuals or entities to prevent:

Thursday, August 29, 2013

From The New Civil Rights Movement:http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/transgender-people-being-murdered-at-a-rate-almost-50-percent-higher-than-lesbians-and-gays/news/2013/08/26/73904by David Badashon August 26, 2013Transgender people were murdered last month at a rate that is almost
50 percent higher than the murders of lesbian and gay people. From
Canada to the United States to Central and South America, in the month
of July alone, 23 transgender people and 16 gay men and lesbian women — a
total of 39 people — were murdered, according to a study from the Organization of American States.
The OAS represents all 35 countries of the American continent. In just
the U.S., an estimated .3 percent of the total population openly
identify as transgender, and 3.5 percent of American adults openly
identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, with bisexual people making up
1.8 percent of that 3.5 percent, according to the Williams Institute.The
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS issued a
warning earlier this month, “reiterat[ing] its deep concern on violence
and discrimination against lesbian, gay, trans, bisexual and intersex
persons (LGTBI), and against persons perceived as such in the Americas.”
The group “urges OAS Member States to adopt urgent measures to prevent
this violence and discrimination. In particular, the Commission is
concerned about the high levels of violence and discrimination faced by
gay, lesbian and trans youth in the region.”

The IACHR added it “was informed that, during the month of July 2013,
23 murders were committed against trans persons and trans women or
those perceived as such in Brazil (9), Colombia (2), Honduras (4),
Jamaica (1), Mexico (2), Paraguay (1), Peru (2), the United States (1),
and Venezuela (1). It is reported that most of these victims were less
than 35 years of age, a majority of them being under 25.”

The report adds, “the majority of these victims were shot, most of them multiple times.”

Additionally, the IACHR was informed of 13 cases of
murders of gay men of all ages in Brazil (8), Honduras (1), Mexico (1),
Peru (2), and Venezuela (1), the vast majority of which were beaten to
death. It also received information on the murders of three Brazilian
lesbian women, two of them less than 25 years of age.

NEW YORK -- Chelsea Manning's announcement
about her gender transition last Thursday seemed to catch many casual
observers by surprise. The former Army intelligence analyst and
WikiLeaks source arrested in May 2010 wanted to be known as a woman, not
as Bradley.

"I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a
female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want
to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible," the 25-year-old Manning
wrote. The day before the announcement, a military court gave Manning a
35-year sentence for leaking 700,000 files to WikiLeaks.

To many LGBT advocates, Manning's declaration came as a relief. They
had struggled for years over how to handle the numerous signs suggesting
Manning's desire to transition. Now, The Huffington Post has obtained
another data point in Manning's long, mostly private transition to
transgender woman: an email Manning sent to a leading "don't ask, don't
tell" researcher asking for advice on military service for transgender
people.

That email, with the subject line "Questions," arrived in researcher Nathaniel Frank's inbox on April 28, 2010.

"I'm doing a little research, and I have a few questions regarding
Transgender people and the U.S. Military," Manning wrote. "What laws /
policies bar servicemembers from seeking name changes, birth certificate
changes, and hormone replacement therapy, etc? … What changes would be
required for these policies to feasibly allow a soldier to transition in
the military?"

That email came four days after Manning sent the non-commissioned officer in charge of discipline in her Army intelligence unit an anguished email titled "My problem" with an image of herself in a woman's wig and makeup attached.

The email also came just days before a dramatic late-night counseling
session on May 8, 2010, in which Manning made a "revelation" about her
gender identity to her Army psychologist, Capt. Michael Worsley. Manning
was in fact in the process of being administratively separated from the
Army because of Worsley's diagnosis of gender identity disorder (a
condition now known as gender dysphoria), which Worsley felt could only
be effectively treated outside of the Army.

Transgender people are not allowed to publicly serve in the
military, and the Army does not provide soldiers with hormone therapy.
Manning's lawyer introduced the "My problem" email, as well as Worsley's
testimony, during the sentencing phase of the trial to show the judge
overseeing the case that Manning was under extreme stress when she made
her leaks. The testimony suggested that Manning's judgment about the consequences of her actions had been affected by the stress.

Hearing To Address Differences Between Federal and State Cannabis Laws

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced on
Monday that he will address discrepancies between federal and state
marijuana laws in an upcoming hearing on September 10. Leahy has invited
Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole to
testify.“It is important, especially at a time of budget constraints, to
determine whether it is the best use of federal resources to prosecute
the personal or medicinal use of marijuana in states that have made such
consumption legal,” Sen. Leahy said. “I believe that these state laws
should be respected. At a minimum, there should be guidance about
enforcement from the federal government.”Twenty states now
allow medical marijuana, and Colorado and Washington recently became the
first two states to approve the legal regulation of marijuana for
non-medicinal purposes.Last December, in a letter to
U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, Senator Leahy asked how the federal
government intends to deal with states like Colorado and Washington. In
the letter, Senator Leahy also suggested that federal legislation could
be introduced to legalize up to an ounce of marijuana, at least in
states that have legalized it. He also sought assurances that state
employees would not be prosecuted for implementing state laws.There are several bipartisan bills in the U.S. House that would reform federal marijuana laws, but so far none in the Senate.“Two states have made marijuana legal for adult use and are
establishing regulated systems of production and distribution,” said Dan
Riffle, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).
“Twenty states plus our nation’s capital have made it legal for medical
use. By failing to recognize the decisions of voters and legislators in
those states, current federal law is undermining their ability to
implement and enforce those laws.Continue reading at: http://tokesignals.com/senator-leahy-calls-for-federal-marijuana-hearing-invites-attorney-general-holder/

The right claims abortion rights protesters brought excrement-filled jars into the Texas Capitol. Here's the truth

There
was a minor, kind of disgusting subplot in the high-profile fight over
Texas’ strict new antiabortion law that made Wendy Davis a star:
Pro-choice activists were accused of bringing jars of feces and urine
into the state Capitol.

The Texas Department of Public safety said
that it had confiscated “one jar suspected to contain urine [and] 18
jars suspected to contain feces,” which naturally provoked the kind of
schadenfreudish condemnation from the anti-choice right that can only be
achieved when your political opponents are caught doing something
distasteful.

Conservativeblogs and tweetersassumed
protesters were going to use the jars as scatological bombs against
pro-life lawmakers and naturally flipped out. National Review called it
“typically charming,” Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman said it was “Texas Democrats [sic] idea of ‘civility,’” while WND even claimed some activists were wearing diapers to resupply their ammunition.Well, as it turns out, there was no poop in poop-gate. The AP reports today:

Texas
Department of Public Safety documents show troopers seized no jars of
urine or feces from Capitol visitors the day of debate of controversial
abortion bill. That’s counter to a DPS statement issued the night of the
July 12 debate and filibuster by Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis.

The
Texas DPS came under scrutiny for the statement, with pro-choice
protesters saying they most certainly had not brought jars filled with
toilet matter into the Capitol. DPS initially stood by the statement,
but refused to release additional information.

About Me

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson